


Wolf Boy

by dripdrop_dead



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Blood and Gore, Character Study, Drug Use, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Infection, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking, Werewolf Richie Tozier, Werewolves, just a little, just a little.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:33:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dripdrop_dead/pseuds/dripdrop_dead
Summary: Richie had stumbled home and bandaged his wound. The memory of the wild dog — long claws and bloody fangs to match — on repeat like a broken record as he taped it shut, blissfully ignored then for days.But now; the full moon was coming.Werewolf AU
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 47





	Wolf Boy

**Author's Note:**

> 2 things! firstly, the amount of swear words in the english language is seriously lacking (or am I not creative enough?). secondly, writing 7 different characters at once was—an experience
> 
> hope you enjoy this character study/werewolf au! :')  
> cause I had a very good time writing it
> 
> (and do keep in mind that I've only seen the movies, so my knowledge of the characters comes from the adaption and tumblr!)
> 
> please tell me what you think!!

They had all woken up to the warmest day of the week yet; all plastered to their beds in sweat and backs laying on bare sheets. 

They had biked down, as if predetermined, although it was in fact not, and they had met and tossed their bikes aside at the quarry. 

Now he got a headache budding at the nape of his neck — like a tree growing branches— and the peebles by his bare feet seemed of more interested than the Losers playfully drowning each other one after the other in the murky water. He fiddled with one between his middle finger and thumb, rolled the coldness back and then forth as he breathed through his nose.  
  
The air smelled of stone walls and warm summer air. He breathed it out and tossed the pebble, watched it go under the surface with a plop, reached down to repeat the act with another.  
  
"What's up?" A voice came.  
  
Richie slowly looked up to its source. The sun basked the back of Bev's head in a blinding halo and he let go of, perhaps, his twenty-fifth pebble. Her bangs were tightly curled upwards from her face with a white hairband and she looked down on him through shaded glass and with a freckled smile. He returned it, with his hand to his forehead protecting his eyes from the light.  
  
She had very carefully walked over the slippery rocks to where he sat far away from their bikes, her toes still curled to them in an attempt to keep balance. Richie’s headache made him slow but he got the gist as she wobbled and helped her sit down with an outstretched hand.

“What's up?” He repeated the same phrase to her as she sat and he let her go. She ignored him and instead patted the rock side by her side twice. Richie moved closer. Their knees touched and she was warm. It felt nice. 

He kept his gaze forward again, saw and heard Eddie gasp in for air like a fish on dry land as he resurfaced. Felt Bev move at his side as the rest of his friends laughed, as their joy echoed against the walls and he snorted with them at Eddie's rage. 

“ _Oh, it's on_.” 

The tip of a carton touched his cheek and he turned back, the cigarette pack followed the motion, still held fast to his dimple. 

“Bevs, you're a fucking saint.” He said, smiled again as he took the package from her hand. He shook the pack and she nodded in agreement. 

“I know.” She said. There were two cigarettes left. “Felt like I was ought to share.” 

Richie was thankful. She always shared. Had an easier time to flirt her way to the right age with the salesman and therefore, almost always had a pack on her to share. He had tried the tactic and it had, sadly, not worked despite his height. 

Once and not long ago when he had been alone and desperate.

_"No underage nothin' in my store. Do you want me to call the cops, young man? Hip or not, with a face like yours, they'll stick ya with the big boys."_

_A puff of the chest, silver chain around the neck glimmering in the white light._

_"I'll gladly add a shoplifting charge too. Poof"_ — _motion of the fingers like a magician in a top hat._ — _"You'd be gone for a long time. A lost cause, they'd say."_

Adding the request for the whiskey bottle after the pack—blueish bruised hand resting on top of the beer cans on the counter— expecting to still be allowed to simply pay and walk away had been the mistake. 

“Thank you,” Richie said as he fished for his lighter in his right front pocket, remembering the encounter. “I needed this.” The cigarette lay rested to his lips, Bev had done the same and he lit hers up before his. Put the rusty lighter away. As the smoke then trickled down to his lungs and swam there with its warm burn as he held it in, Bev asked again.

“Now. What's wrong?” She asked and the smoke escaped into a dirty cloud. A slight change of question. Of course, she would lay notice.

There was a pause. “Ack, Bev,” Richie then spilled, the trail of smoke followed his moving hand with drama. “My thoughts are in shambles.” 

She did not look impressed. Tried to hide her scold. “How's so?” She further inquired as she pulled in more smoke. 

Her knee burned against Richie’s. He _tskd_. 

“I've already revealed far too much,” He swallowed smoke as he desperately tried to deflect her steel gaze. “Why are you not in the water?” He instead asked. Swifted through the new cloud with its source. 

“Why aren't you?” She returned. Richie waved both his hands low in response and she dropped it. Reluctantly. “Well, I can't,” Bev answered. “What about _you_? Isn't the sun slowly fryin’ you?” 

It’s rather cold, Richie thought but pushed it away. “Ah,” He said. “You're also on the bloody week? Tell me, _girlfriend_. Does your cramps also feel like knives gutting you?” 

He laughed as she punched him gently on the arm. “Beep, beep.” She said with not too much seriousness and Richie laughed again, relaxed his shoulders from the pose he had struck. Let himself bask in the sun. 

“You're still coming with this weekend?” She asked. Changed the subject.

Richie scoffed. “Of course,” He looked at her with creased eyebrows. “My mother's already said it's fine.” Bev shook her hand as he said that. He decided to continue at the motion despite himself. “Whether she likes it or not, that’s what I’ll take it as.” 

He shifted on the rock, pulled his back straight and cleared his throat. “Mother, can I go camping with my friends?” He said and then changed his tone into a mumble. Changed it back. “Mother, are you listening to me? Mother, mother, can I run away and never come back?” A rosy tone flowed out of his mouth. “ _G_ _ladly_.”

The water suddenly splashed repeatedly and closer than before and they both turned their heads towards the sound. The rest of their friends were slowly waddling upwards from the water on the steps carved out of the rocks, tilted frames and poses as for not to slip. 

He thought she seemed glad for the distraction, despite the fact neither he wanted to wallow in his own self pity. Richie studied them with Bev. “Bet they'll slip.” He commented without the need for a response. 

Bill was first in line and besides him were Stan. Then came Ben, Mike and lastly Eddie.

Bev stood to her feet as Bill had managed to stand upright on land and wave to them. She had squeezed Richie’s shoulder before she rose, given a somber smile, and that was that. He knew she meant well to end their conversation. Nonetheless did he dig his nails into his thigh as he too rose.

Richie saw Bill's smile as a blurred line through his shitty glasses, but still returned it and put his cigarette in his mouth. Held it there steady between his lips as he patiently waited for Bev to stomp hers out on the rocks before he grabbed her arm and led her over the slippery slope. 

“You're not going to swim more?” Bev asked as they reached them. She let go of her support and Richie, momentarily, missed the warmth. He shook it off with another round of smoke. 

“E-E-Eddie almost drown, drowned, Stan.” Bill answered and Richie laughed through the smoke, shut his mouth when Stan glared back at him, he now too up from the water. 

“We're just taking a breather.” Stan said, voice hoarse and curls dripping of lakewater. 

Richie answered with a smile. “A breather.” He repeated, nodded as he left Bev and walked forwards over the gravel. Passed by both Bill and Stan. Walked further. Ben and Mike talked about something unintelligible as he passed them, both greatly and happily engulfed in the conversation held between them as water dripped from their faces. He saluted them anyway.

“Eddie!” He exclaimed when he reached the water’s edge, looked down at the boy in question, he still stood sunk in water to his waist. Eddie looked up at Richie and Richie looked back. His hair lay in a wet back slick on top of his head, some stray hairs stuck to his cheek and between his brows, which now had started to furrow. He was courtly ignored then in the stead of the next rocky step. Richie continued despite. “Heard about your murder attempt.” 

“It was hardly an attempt.” Eddie said, laying a great amount of focus on his feet. “He swallowed some water.” 

Richie snorted. Felt warm again. And decided to move his bare feet, one at the time, onto the first watery step. “Hardly?” He questioned, the water felt nice around his ankles. He flexed his toes. “He sounded pretty hoarse.” 

“He started—what are you doing?” Eddie interrupted himself and instead asked. Looked up towards the other once more with squinted eyes. “Move.”

“I just want to cool my feet.” He flexed his toes again through the water to showcase it. Splashed a few drops onto Eddie's face who winced in response, wiped away at his cheek. 

“I can't get past you, you know? You're too wide.”

“Yeah. Are you gonna drown me too?” Richie answered with a smile. He took his cigarette to his mouth, puckered his lips up, looked towards the sky and blew smoke. Added a lonely cloud to it. 

He felt a cold grip coil around his ankle and he choked; it sent warmth through his whole leg, up, up and up until he looked down on Eddie in the moment he leaped of the rocks. His eyes gleaming of mischief. With the momentum of his jump, Eddie grabbed his tacky shirt in a handful of fists and pulled, and without the support of his left foot, Richie fell forwards with a startled yelp. 

“Fuck!”

Eddie swiftly let go and with a loud splash, much unlike the sound of the peebles, Richie had flew far above and plunched with a hand around his glasses.

He had not expected to end up in the turquoise water, so shock was down there with him. He kicked through the dark, turned around and upright. A while passed and then he too was gasping like a fish for air as he broke the surface. The sun blinded him above, it all became bright again and he managed a swear or many more to his joy. His glasses were there on his head too.

He heard the laughter of Eddie. High and light. Richie pushed his glasses down to the bridge of his nose and could not help but laugh too as he saw him hanging onto the rock side; the summer’s freckles spread onto his cheeks, through a glass of water drops. 

“Didn’t expect that, huh?” Eddie said through his hicks of laughter, grabby hands holding onto the rocks. 

“Touché.” Richie simply answered as he swam towards the steps, spit out water when it filled his mouth. “You had me in a moment of surprise.”

Eddie grinned back at him. 

“Man,” Richie then said, pouted, realized a thing. “You made me lose my cig.” He stopped his so-called crawl at solid rock beneath his feet.

“ _Good_ ,” Eddie said, no shame in his voice. He moved back to where he had been before, water at his waist. “They’ll kill you.” He stretched his hand out and Richie grabbed hold of it, got pulled up a few steps up with Eddie's help and warm hand.

As he moved, Richie took great effort in ignoring how his clothes felt on his skin with his movements. Wet, sticky and heavy. _Cold_ in the breeze. It was hard to ignore. 

“You’re still coming with, right?” Eddie fumbled to ask as he let go of the other's hand. Richie's hand and shirt slapped against his thighs.

He looked up at him with a groan and said: “Ah, you too?” He did not mean to sound annoyed, but, he did. “Is this an interrogation?”

Eddie looked taken aback, it crossed his face, almost too fast to catch before he turned, waddled from the water and onto land. “What, no?” He paused, waited for Richie to step out too, tried to keep himself from shivering whilst and hugged his own frame. “You don't look very good. Pale,” He then said and gained a confused look. “Hard not to notice.” He added, seeming concerned by the turn of his mouth and shrug.

A pale face looked back at him. “Aw, you care” Richie decided to say. “You’re too cute!” He reached to pet the wet clump of hair, managed to stroke it once before he was shaken off harshly. Eddie looked liked he was just about cracking his neck they way he craned it and Richie laughed. 

“Don't,” He said. “I'll push you in again.” Seeming to have forgotten the cool breeze he opened his arms, exposed goosebumped skin. His new stance a clear indication of a threat. 

“Shit, I don't doubt you, Eds,” Richie lifted his arms in surrender and made a ghostly like sound. “Devil eyes.” He grinned and got punched in the chest. 

“Don't call me Eds.” Eddie said, his fist stayed against the wet shirt as he continued. “We'll take company there, to the campground,” He poked his chest twice before he stepped back. “Is that okay?” 

Why? Richie wondered for a moment but kicked his feet together and answered with a salute instead. “Yes, sir.” He said and Eddie rolled his eyes, started to walk away with Richie pattering behind him. 

“You're wet.” Stan very bluntly and obviously stated when they reached the assembly of towel clad people. Richie came to a stop before his friends and a dark puddle formed slowly beneath his sandy feet. Bev giggled at the sight, Bill and Ben on either side of her with smiles of their own. Must be a sight for sore eyes, he thought.

Richie gasped towards Stan, displayed himself with a pair of outstretched arms, as if just taking notice. Whilst, Eddie had taken company with Mike, slipped away unnoticed to the bikes scattered behind them. 

“Sorry, Stan the man,” Richie said apologetically, lowered his arms again. “It’s not because of you. This time.” He winked and Stan grimaced. 

“Gross.” He answered.

“What h-h-happened?”

“Eddie happened, I'm sure.” Bev answered for him. Too fast for Richie to crack another innuendo of his own and with a sly smile on her face. Richie promptly tried to shake his last joke. 

“Do you have a change of clothes with you?” Ben asked and Richie gladly turned to the left towards him. 

“Now, why would I have that?” He questioned his savior from his own thoughts. “I wasn't planning for a dip before my drowning happened.” 

Ben squeezed his hands around the fuzzy towel draped over his neck. “That's true.” He said and nodded solemnly. 

A towel flew past and Richie would have been smacked middle across the face had he not caught it mid-air. Held the thick and soft fabric between his thumbs and fingers then. Mike lowered his hand from the trow as he turned up from behind Ben's back with Eddie close behind. “For you to dry with.” He said to Richie with a kind smile. 

“You had an extra?” Bev wondered, looked back and forth between him and Richie who was already sweeping it over his head. 

Mike glanced over to her. “Yeah, I did.” He kept smiling. 

The towel was set to work straight away as Richie dried his hair with a rough back and forth motion. “Thank you very much, man.” He said, glanced upwards from beneath his wet hair and towel. 

“Don't sweat it,” Mike answered and turned towards the others. “Ready for another go?” He asked. Motioned to the lake.

“Yeah, I-I’m already dry again.”

“And I can breathe again.” 

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. We can call it even.”

Richie looked them all over as they one after the other tossed their towels to the ground, in exception of Stan who folded it neatly, and he let his own slide down his head onto his shoulders, hang there like a cape. As he stood there then, it felt like his head's tree had grown two big leaves in his eye sockets. Annoyingly eager to pop them out. His groan got interrupted by Bev. 

“You're also going in this time?” Her question made everyone stop to a still, Richie especially. He turned and she looked at him with a sense of expectancy, held onto her hips as she lifted her eyebrows.

Pop. Pop. _Oh, no, my eyeballs_. He imagined them bouncing up and down in the sand. 

“No,” Richie slowly shook his head in a pause, let himself feel the slowly falling water on his cheeks. Ignored it again as it only made the pain worsen. “I think I'm gonna go.” He said and smiled, massaged his aching temple with his thumb. “I have some things to pick up.” _A lousy lie_.

Bev looked about ready to protest. and he could feel them all study him and since he rather not study them in return, he walked. He turned to a sidesjump a few steps away and was on his way to say something when Mike beat him to it. 

“You can keep the towel!” 

Richie blew him a kiss in thanks, did not notice Eddie's elbow to Mike’s side and walked away with a wave. Reached his rusty grey bike in a minute. 

Eddie had been right, is what Richie blatantly thought when he saw himself in the dirty hallway mirror. It was as if his skin was melting together with the egg white color of the towel around his neck. Quite frankly, he looked like a wax doll.

“Boo.” He said to his reflection and promptly ignored it. He took three large steps into the kitchen, no mind to the trail of water he left behind but on his new found task, and as he opened the fridge’s door, he absentmindedly tapped at his chest. _Hungry_ , he thought, simply, and stared at its empty insides. A lone beer stood there, the fridge’s fan whirred and stammered in his head in unison with its hurt. Yeah, he too, would be ashamed if that was all he had to offer. 

“Good enough.” He quipped as he pulled the green bottle out, shut the door with the elbow of the same arm that held onto it. The fridge scrambled and then went quiet. Richie tapped his chest twice, paused for a moment, held in thought. 

“Mom?” He then called out, turned his head to look around the kitchen and the half of the living room that lay visible. He let the beer bottle slide to safety behind his shirt, just in case, although, there were no answer. He did not bother to call out again and swiftly did he open the cupboard above his head, took out the whiskey and left the kitchen. _A boy needed his food._

Even though the bike ride back had dried his clothes somewhat, they had started to become a misery. His t-shirt had stiffened to his chest and it hurt, and his pants had stiffened to his crotch and legs; it made him feel dirty. He took the stairs two steps at a time and passed his room, turned into the bathroom instead. It smelt strongly of artificial roses and it hit Richie in a sudden waft, the pink soaps lining the window sill above the bathtub making their presence known _a-hell-of-alot-more-times_ than usual. 

The two bottles clinked against the basin as he had to quickly put them down to not drop them, he tried to breathe and gasped the roses. “Jesus, what the fuck.” He whispered before he reached with his hand and pushed the soaps down into the tub, his old bathwater still there splashing against the edges as he opened the window. He flipped the soaps off as they bobbed to a stop.

They still smelled, _amazingly enough_ , but he was able to breathe without choking once more. With even breathes did Richie let Mike’s towel slid down his back with his shirt and on top of the toilet lid as he reached for the bottles again, he made a choice and took the whiskey. He needed to check on the wound, he thought. Reluctantly. He groaned into the cup of his free hand, loudly, jumped up and down on his toes to motivate himself as he let go. He could not fathom that the quarry water had done it any good.

“Fuck,” He said to himself, looked up at his own face, repeated it. He turned down to the golden liquid and swirled it back and forth in its container. Paused. 

“Alright,” He started, and removed the cap, readied himself. “Dr. Tozier is in,” He took a big gulp. It burned on its way down and warmed his throat. He tried to spit out the taste into the basin, shook his head with a groan. “ _Urgh_. So, what is wrong today, Mr. Tozier?” He sympaticlly asked his reflection and took another gulp, yet a bigger one. He hummed in answer and put the bottle down, moved both his hands to the end of his t-shirt and started to pull upwards. “A -- you say?” He cuts himself off with the shirt. “The best cure, I'll tell ya, chug a whole bottle of good ol’ booze.” 

He laughed towards himself, the reflection bounced with him. “Right ahead of ya.” He said and then he went quiet. 

The band aid, discolored by the water, a dark and dirty yellow, hung loosely to his chest by a lonely line of tape. Presented the pulsing wounds in the mirror which was a array of reds and infected. Obviously so. He would have been able to tell even without the vast knowledge of Dr. Tozier’s doctor degree. 

He allowed himself to pause for a moment before he moved his hand slowly to his chest with a breath of air — the nauseatingly sweet scent of rose mixed with rotting skin — and tore the bandaid and the tape off. It stuck slightly to his skin and he hissed, cursed the way it pulled with the few scabs that had managed to become. It dropped to the floor, fluttered slowly to a stop against the clinker, and when Richie stood there, wound exposed to its every crevice of a fang, he could not help but stare. White puss seemed to drip from the holes in his chest and the line of his mouth turned to a grimace. _Someone up for cake with vanilla creme?_ He both made himself laugh and gag at the thought and he looked away.

The whiskey bottle stood on top of the basin without its cap, weak sun rays trinkled in through the small open window above the bathtub, and it shone golden. He took the bottle in his hand, tried to remember one of the many lessons Eddie had taught him in great, but, worrisome, anger when he had gotten himself hurt through the years. 

_“You have to disinfect it. You have to! You want to have to amputate your leg? ‘Cause that’s what you’re going to get.”_

_“Pirate then, my Halloween costume is set! An authentic wooden leg, Eds. That’s amazing.”_

He remembered the moment swiftly and came to the conclusion: disinfection, a step which he had courtly skipped when he had gotten home that night after the party, the band-aid tasked with holding it all together by itself, and which now, seemed to be the best next step. So naturally, since he was drunk, he poured the whiskey down his chest.

“ ** _Fuck me_ **!" He yelled as the liquid came in contact with the wounds, dropped the bottle which broke to pieces against the floor. It felt like he had taken his fingers and pushed one into one wound each. Twisted his fingernails into them. He had to fall forward, and he luckily caught himself with his hands around the basin. He felt the alcohol slowly slide down his chest, to his belly and to his stiff pant lining. He breathed in through his nose quick and swallow, biting a hole in his tongue through the burning pain as he gripped the edges of the basin. 

"Fuck me." He said once more, whispered it this time. He tasted metal. 

It passed, slowly and not completely, and when he was able to he forced his fists to uncurl from the basin with a low cry and his knuckles strained white. He looked up in the mirror, met his own waxy face which was somewhat smudged around the edges in his eyes. Blurred by the alcohol. 

He let his breath fall out over his teeth and lips. 

The bite marks from the wild dog shimmered slightly in the light, the whiskey and the blood, gently flowing together out of the holes in thin trails, reflecting the sun light from the window. He stood there for a moment and looked at it with a sense of defeat and thought: _Great_. 

At least the tree in his head had decided to wither.

  
  


"Oh no, you don't." Richie said to the tent which threaten to pull down all of their junk and clothes from the cupboard with it. The chair he stood on wiggled as he tried to move the beige bag of an old tent outward. Back and forth as he pulled at it with a groan, toes, body and arms outstretched.

He had packed everything necessary already, shoved it into a duffel bag which now lay on its own above him in the hallway. It was just the bastard tent left. He asked for it to corporate as he pulled it to the left and tilted it over the edge. It dragged with it everything. With a yelp did he jump off the chair and to the side, landed on the carpet floor together with boxes and dumbells which thudded unbelievably loud.

"Really?" 

He sighed as he looked upon the mess, turned to the clock hanging ajar at the wall and read the time. _05:46 PM_. Spelled out in crying numbers who almost had lost all their color. Eddie would be outside in 14 minutes, he thought, hand on his chest. 

For perhaps thirty seconds, he considered leaving it all, fairly annoyed and feeling betrayed by the bag. Kept considering it as he kneeled to the floor. He moved a very old collection of pale and dusty baby clothes and took forward the tent bag, the lightweight dumbbells rolling away to a dark corner of the basement. Checked the content as he sat, bottom resting atop of his heels, and gladden that it all seemed to be there.

Suddenly did Richie turn his head towards the stairway. He smelled the air twice and coughed at the strong, vile, familiar scent of his father's cologne that filled his nostrils. 

_He must've heard the bang._

It trickled down the steps and grew in power fast, smellt like his father had taken a long and soaking bath in it. Quickly he rummaged through the pile of junk and forgotten trinkets, grabbed hold of _something_ as he coughed yet again. 

"What are you doing down here?" 

The stern voice of Wentworth Tozier interrupted Richie's frantic searching. He turned slowly and reluctantly towards his father who stood two steps above the floor. Rose to his feet whilst displaying the room with one hand, making sure to only breathe through his mouth.

"Good Evening, dear Father. Splendid morning we're havin', ey?" He said.

The sun peeked in through the tiny, tinted basement window and whilst Wentworth looked upon him, spite in his eyes which he never quite managed to disguise, Richie swallowed bile. 

"Can't you ever be serious?" he asked as if Richie were the losing ticket of a son. Which Richie wholefully agreed with. 

_Since, what did he do now?_

Drank and smoked. Only went to school for his friends and brought home and hid bad report after the other. Under his bed. Folded and tucked behind the pipes of the kitchen sink. By the side of the road on his way home. _He talks too much. He talks too little_ . The teachers wrote. Why he did not tear them apart and throw them away he could not grasp. Nor why he reread them some awfully dark nights. _Ha_. The homosexual tendencies were only the icing of the cake, he thought. 

His father looked around the room and landed on the mess at the floor, the hardness in his voice interrupting his degrading line of thoughts. "You better clean that up." He ordered and then asked again: "What are you doing down here?" Even sterner this time.

Richie brought up the object he had managed to grab hold of. The long bag of a residing tennis racket.

Quickly figuring out a reason, Richie simply answered: "Sports." 

"You don't do sports." His father stated in return, certainly not believing him. He took a step down.

Richie gasped in offence. "What?" He said, holding up the racket like one should, still surrounded by the grey bag. Continued. "I happen to be an adept tennis player. Have you missed all my games?" He swung the racket, lying through his teeth. He eyed the way his father's feet stood against the edge of the last step, grey socks not quite snugged around his toes, instead hanging loosely.

Wentworth scoffed, moved his right foot just a inch closer to the edge. An seemingly innocent action as he spoke again. "I hope you still know you're not allowed out," He said calmly, shifted the foot ever so slightly. "Or do I need to remind you why?"

Richie courtly shook his head. The foot was calculated, he knew, kept his tongue harshly tied.

"Good," his father said with a breath of air. It was a deep sigh. A moment passed, too many heartbeats long for Richie's taste before the foot moved, slowly backing up the one step his father had taken to his great joy.

Wentworth pointed towards the baby clothes and the area around the lost dumbbell. "Clean it up." He repeated. "And you better respect your mother," He lowered the rough finger again. "She has a headache and is trying to sleep."

"Yes, sir." And knowing what that inclined. "No sounds from me." Richie assured and his father took his words to mouth. Chewed at them as he took a bite to his cheek. Decided then that he was finished he turned, walked the creaking steps and disappeared. 

Richie turned to the clock again, finally able to breathe once more, both figurily and physically. _05:50 PM_ it read. Still ten minutes remained. He still had time, he thought. _Good_. 

_Breathe_ , he reminded himself. The stairway to the first floor thudded in his ears, making the simple act of taking in air to his lung easier by the second. 

Thud. Thud. Further dampened by sock clad feet and then the distance. 

The smell of his father's ratchet cologne stuck in his nose, and it took no small ounce of his will not to gag on it. He massaged his left nostril with his hand and blew out air through them both in a try to get rid of it, looked upon the fallen junk on the floor as he failed and decided to breathe through his mouth instead. 

He stood and stared as he breathed, at a small baby jumpsuit among the other clothes. The heels of it were pale and worn down and it were yellow. Small grey elephants traveling up the legs to the chest where a bigger one smiled at him with a goopy toothless smile. 

He sounded at the ugly animal, a noise deep down his throat, and he realized how his hands shook by his sides as the elephant looked back at him. Its eyes made out of small cotton balls and mouth agape and laughing. 

He tried not to feel shame. 

_Fear or anger?_ He tried to categorize the other feeling his father had left him with this time, marveled in it for a moment as he took hold his right hand with his left, willed it to stop shaking by force. _Stop_ , he told it. _You're pathetic_. He bent down to pick up the tent bag as his hands agreed and listened. Flung it to his shoulder and let it hang against his leg. 

A deep breath of air. The damn cologne desperately seeking nesting in the spaces of his nose. 

He left the elephant jumpsuit on the floor and everything else with it too. An old broken antenna of a walkie talkie, a cracked picture frame and the dumbbells, the furthest away, hidden in the black corner, left there to rot. Anger then, he thought, as he disobeyed and walked upstairs. 

The act made him feel euphoric to his very bone. 

He walked through the narrow hallway, the same old pictures hanging loose to the walls around him with no sense of taste nor pattern, and the tent bag swinging slowly back and forth at his leg. His father's swollen and musty green armchair stood empty in the living room and a bottle stood at the side table, left there since the late night yesterday. He saw it was half empty. Dark red lipstick stains on its rim.

A set of floorboards creaked above his head, pulled him back to the now and swiftly did he tiptoe to the hallway. He smelled something familiar through the front door. The cologne finally leaving his very presence, replaced by something warm and welcome as he grabbed the duffel bag which he had hidden behind jackets far too warm for the current weather. 

_Of course he is early_. 

The notion of him recognizing a smell and giving it a face should have warranted a reaction but instead of thinking of it, he pulled the bags' straps over his head and let them hang on his shoulders.

"I thought I smelled something." He said as he opened the door.

Richie smiled as Eddie looked up to him, eyebrows creased in confusion. A bike stood steady and upright in his hands, front wheel touching the edge of the Tozier's yellow-green lawn. 

"Is that supposed to be an insult? Even you can do better than that." Eddie said with a smile as Richie closed the door behind him. 

He kept smiling. "Fuck you. You either take it or leave it." He said and took a leap from the porch, basking in the smell of sunlight. 

He thought of the nature of his statement, for a short moment — _did Eddie smell?_ — scratched the back of his neck as he reached for his bike which lay on its side in the grass.

"Look at what the cat dragged 'ere?" He said and looked up, Eddie shook his head. "Hm."

He pulled his bike upright, gracefully avoiding its tries to snag him down with it as the grass blades tried to keep it. Pulled a yellowing blade from the ground in the process and put it between his teeth.

The bike was dragged by its steering wheel over the lawn besides the thin walking path to the house, shoohed at Eddie as he reached him who reluctantly followed the motion. Slowly moving backwards.

"Hurry, _hurry_ ," Richie said and shook his bike, chewed at the grass in between his teeth as it rattled soundly. "Authority's are at our backs. Hurry! Otherwise they will take me back and eat me for a nice in-between snack." 

"Good afternoon to you too." 

Eddie's face clearly said something about his bemusement as Richie then rattled his bike again. 

He pulled it forwards in one swish motion to touch its wheel against Eddie's. "Aye, love, don't you get it?" He asked, nudging the other's wheel back and forth. "I'm grounded for heaven's sake."

Eddie's face changed. _Oh_ , it said and in the next moment he pulled his bike backwards. He glanced upon the house, lines of empty windows now seemed like watchful eyes without pupils, turned his bike around with a sense of urgency. 

Richie barked a laugh in joy. "I knew I could count on you," He climbed on top of his bike, wobbled for a short moment at the uneven weight of his bags before he found his balance. "Eds, you're my newest partner in crime. Obviously I'm the muscle of the operation and don't ask what happened to the others," He shuddered with a great and exaggerated tremor of his shoulders. “Ya wouldn’t be able to stomach it.”

Eddie hushed him harshly. "Shut up," he said, looked over his shoulder at him as he put his right foot to the pedal of his bike. "Do you want to get caught?"

"Rather not." 

Eddie tossed his other foot over and took off. Peddled slowly till the sound of Richie and his bike joined close behind him and they both increased their speed to a quick and comfortable pace. 

“And fuck off with _can't stomach it_ . You _better_ tell me what happened to the others.” Eddie said as they then rode besides each other, glanced shortly to Richie and saw his approving smile, before he turned back as for not let his bike dip into a sudden pot hole. A most unbelievable story then spun through the warm, warm and sunny air as they rode towards the Beaver campgrounds. 

Their final destination simply lay at the outskirts of town, at the very first notion of almost leaving it behind. The back of the wooden sign welcoming you to Derry — sometimes known as _Pop the Cherry_ or less creatively and more often known as _Oerry_ , a _D_ easily changed to an _O_ — seen in the distance before the hard left turn. 

They rode the road for about a quarter, shaking up and down as the gravel was meant for the wide wheels of cars and not for their bikes, stopping once at the side in the grass to avoid a low, out of place, Cadillac driving away — its undercarriage graced a bigger rock with a long scraping sound as it bid its goodbye.

"We are here!" Richie exclaimed as he jumped to the ground, flat stones of different sizes leading up to the reception further ahead where a carved beaver stood waiting, ready to welcome them with open and disproportionate arms. 

He heard Eddie step to the ground behind him, a dry breath by his ear as he then joined besides him. 

Richie could smell the sweat in the air, heavy and sour, and he abandoned his earlier task of looking for their friends to glance at Eddie as he took a deep breathe of his inhaler. Old habits die hard, he thought as the smell got a chemical tang to it.

"You see them anywhere?" Eddie asked before Richie had time to ask him if he felt okay, put down the blue inhaler in his bag again with one hand as he held onto his bike with the other. 

Richie was about to say no when a lanky guy, now appeared by the reception and their age, called out to them. The uneven voice travelling the ground cut into his ear as if he had stood yelling right into it. _Huh_.

"You're the last two of the group of seven then?" He asked as he had almost reached them, open toes sandals crunching in the gravel besides the path. Somehow the sight of the yelling guy up close irritated Richie and he massaged his ear with his shoulder without giving him an answer. 

Although, he pointed to the left at Eddie's confirmation instead. 

His name tag read _Hans._ What kind of name was that, Richie thought. And his finger was just a lanky as the rest of him. "Site 30, furthest away," Uneven and loud voice again. "You're the only ones here, it be a shock if you missed it." A wide smile, perhaps reserved for those he considered the tolerable customers. 

Eddie thanked Hans as Richie peddled away. 

Richie's bike hit a unexpected jagged root as he had intended to step off at site thirty. It tipped his balance to the side of the tent bag and forced him to lean to his steering wheel. He swore before he hissed as his chest, lied upon the metal, took his weight. 

The small shots of pain did little to adjourn his, now slowly boiling, irritation — caused by an innocent Hans — as he managed to stand up again. Albeit the light touch of Eddie's fingers on his back, his sound of pain loud enough to have been heard, let it simmer down slightly. 

_I'm fine_. He waved the concern of with his hand and the warm touch disappeared. 

"Finally," Richie looked up at Bev's voice and she smiled brightly at them, flinched merely a little at the sound of his bike hitting the ground as he courtly dropped it. 

She motioned with her finger to their spot, four tents already risen and shaking slightly in the low breeze, continuing to Eddie as Richie walked away. "We're almost finished here." She said behind him with another smile. Although, she glared after him, ignored. 

The spot was nicely free of charge since Stan, sitting on the ground pressing a tent peg down into the dry dirt with the help of Mike, had a friend from his Bird Watchers club who worked here. A friend which gladly had offered the favor without reciprocate in mind. _Definitely the whiney Hans_. Richie thought as he greeted his friends with the thud of his bags, the dirt between the tufts of grass spinning up into the air. 

"Hey," Mike said with a smile, looking up to Richie and reaching out the next tent peg to Stan whilst. "Thought you two had gotten lost." 

"Nah, I couldn't get lost here even if I tried. I know Derry like my latest hookup," He winked as he hunched down. " _Imtimelty._ Here before dark aren't we?" He adjusted his glasses as a low _Beep, beep_ sounded from Stan's form which he ignored for now. Instead opening up his duffle bag laying on the ground to his left. 

Mike agreed with a hum and a pat to his knee, nodded towards the military green tent rising above them. "Here to give us a hand?" 

Richie shook his head as he brought his hand into the bag. "Nope, sorry" he said, popping the 'p'. Took hold of and reached out the borrowed towel. "Here you go, man. Thanks for letting me borrow it." 

"Ah," Mike said and Richie furrowed his brows shortly as he caught Stan glancing upwards from his tent, perhaps only for a second, as he then kept on with his task; the next press of peg through hard ground. The towel was waved back and forth at the slow reaction and Mike met Richie's eyes. Reached out to take it. 

Richie pointed to it with a outstretched finger as his hand turned empty, proud as he said: "I even washed it for you." _A great gesture_. Although, it smelled about a dussin too many cups of softener.

"You didn't have to," Mike said with a smile. "But thank you, really." Appreciated it nonetheless. 

"Don't mention it." He patted Mike's shoulder and failed to notice the _E. Kasprak_ embroidered onto the clothing pin before it was folded tight. 

"Then what?" 

"W-what do you mean?" Bill looked up. 

"I _mean_ that's the ending?" Richie chewed at the tip of his finger, removed it from his mouth as he displayed his hand. Went quiet for a moment. " _Aliens._ " He then deadpanned and turned his wrist. Laughed shortly as he looked around to the faces of his friends and then back to Bill again. "That's the explanation? No offence. Isn't a ghost story supposed to scare? I would rather you just leave it to—"

"Hush," Bev swatted a dismissive hand in front of Richie's face, left his mouth agape and dispelled his cloud of cigarette smoke. She turned and smiled towards Bill, who looked back at her rather deflated. His hands to his knees as he fiddled with a thread. 

"I liked it," she said sincerely. "Richie is a dick." 

"Oh, fuck off." Richie exclaimed, waved his cigarette in front of him like a conductor in charge of a orchester, all in all, playing the wrong chord. "Honesty is a virtue! I loved it, Bill, your stories are out of this world, I say and swear." He leaned forward onto his knees, empty hand to his chest and accepted Bill's gratitude in form of a nodded thanks. "But," he then continued as he rose up again. "The ending was absolute shit." 

He felt a jab in his side as Eddie— sitting besides him with his legs crossed, having earlier listened to the story so intently with wide eyes — hit him. " _Beep, fucking beep_." He bit out. Richie glared back, decided to pull in some smoke as he leaned backward. Intended to blow it into the other's freckled face, although, sadly, interrupted. 

Mike had turned to Bill as well. "I thought it was great, _all_ of it." He offered with a kind smile.

Ben and Stan courtly agreed. Richie let the smoke trinkle out of his nostrils instead. 

"Thank you, guys. R-really, I mean it."

The charcoaled wood in the fire let out a sounding crack as it split apart, sent golden sparks into the air which were swept away by the warm breeze. 

He tapped his chest before he leaned forward again. Put his cigarette to his mouth and let it lay there between his lips. "My turn then and I promise," Not quite enjoying being ganged up on and with crawling sensation present in his legs and arms. "This one is scary." He smiled. 

"Oh, really?" Eddie looked upon him, seemingly not convinced, tilted his head to the side. "You swear?" 

Richie nodded, swept his hand over his chest. "I swear on my life. Cross my heart and hope to die. All that shit." He opened his mouth slightly, let his cigarette, smoked all the way down to the filter, fall to the ground. Stomped it out beneath his shoe as he asked his expecting crowd: 

"Ever heard of the doll?" 

The fire crackled once more.

"Really?" Bev immediately questioned with a laugh, a smirk creeping onto her lips. "Isn't that a bit too cheap?" She turned to the others, motioned with her arms as if to say: gather round, gather round.

Richie glared at her as she then opened her mouth, knowing full well that she was going to do and squeezed his hand into a fist as she begun. 

"Hear here," she said and they all listened. Ben scooted closer to her on the log where they sat. "A mother buys her daughter a doll after weeks of nagging, but _this_ isn't a regular doll. _Shocking_ . This is the doll by the name of Carrie and the store clerk warns them," she pulled up a warning finger for effect. " _Never_ be alone with this doll." 

Eddie gasped and Richie turned at the sound. Looked at him as he sat with an exaggerated expression plastered to his face, hand cupping his mouth. Removed then with a scornful look to his eyes as he glanced to Richie. _Fuck you then_. 

Bev continued. "Love, Mommy. Love, Mommy it always said in a metallic voice," she went, dropped both her hands to her knees as she leaned forward, fire casting her face into a bulk of light. "Until the moment the little girl sat alone with it, again, shocking, and—" Bev quickly turned to the side and smacked Ben's legs as her voice shouted. " _Kill_ Mommy!" 

He jumped with a gasp. 

Ben sat flabbergasted for a moment. Smacked his lips with his hand to his chest as the surprise of Bev's sudden outburst held him. A gently pat to his knee and a apoplectic smile before she let him go and rose upright once more. 

"Startle to scare," she said, proved her point with a motion to Ben, and turned towards Richie. Smile gone as she pulled her hair behind her ear. "That's some ending right?" 

Richie flipped her off. "Who's the dick now?"

"Oh, we all are still certain it's you." 

"B-Bev.." 

"No. What gives him— what gives you the right to act like,frankly, a moron? Hm. What's your excuse." 

A shrug of his shoulders. "I'll have to ask you the same," Richie pressed his heel harshly to the ground, crushed the remains of his cigarette. "What's your damage?" 

"Guys," Ben dragged out the word as he flattened his shirt. "Could you please not fight. We were having such a nice time." Smiled weakly. 

Richie tossed him a glance and laughed. Shortly and hard. "Look at that. The pussy speaks."

Eddie grabbed hold of his arm. Tugged it downwards as he yelped and asked, in a hard but, _oh so_ , sincere voice. "Hey, what's wrong with you?" 

"Oh, come on, Eddie. You saw how he jumped," he shook the hold off, displayed Ben in the spotlight of his hands. "He doesn't even have the fucking balls to confess his big, fat crush!" 

He laughed again because it was true. Thought Ben must be grateful for the flush the fire already had put on his cheeks as he looked back at him, eyes startled like a doe in headlights. Utterly set on not only seeming unaffected but to not glance to his right. 

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Richie lowered his hands again. "I'm sorry, Ben, but you're see through."

"But you're different?" 

Richie turned. "Ah, Stanley!" Clenched his teeth at the suggestion. "Thank you for joining. I've been meaning to ask," he turned his hand toward the campground, palm flat open. "What did you have to do to get this for us for free?" 

Stan gave him a confused look. His posture straight, arms crossed in his knee as the wind tugged at his curls. He raised his brows and tilted slightly forward at the pause. "Well, go ahead. Don't let me stop you." 

"I mean," Richie started, looked back and forth between them all as the fire whined. " _Hans_ must want something in return while you're at your expeditions." 

Wanked the air with his hand. 

"Jesus, Richie," Eddie said besides him. "That's disgusting." 

"Hey!" Mike exclaimed. 

Richie ignored them. "Beep, beep, right?" He said instead, smiled as Stan stared back at him, shocked with his mouth slightly open. 

"Hm," A pointed finger to his mouth. "Or do you do it like that?" 

"Oh my god. Hey, Richie, be quiet," Bev spoke again. "What _is_ wrong with you? Don't make that face, I'm asking because I—" she motioned around the fire pit. "Because _we’re_ worried." 

Another laugh. "I'm fantastic," Richie courtly said, moved his foot back and forth as he felt the stares of his friends like needles in his arms. "You can quit your nagging." 

Bev shook her head. "No," she moved forward, seemed to be on her way to cross the fire and walk to him. "What's wrong? Why are you acting like this?"

"Jeez, Bev, you're not my mother. Try caring a little less."

She became quiet for a blissful few seconds. “Is that it?” Bev then said, her eyes wide as Richie bit his bottom lip, cursing himself for giving her the idea. Cursed himself further as he pictured his father, body leaned to the kitchen counter, waiting, as he stepped through the front door, and then his mother, a soft smile as she lamented over yet another headache as he stood with a hand to his burning cheek.

He shook his head. Pressed his thumbnail to his middle finger as she asked nonetheless. 

“How’s it at home?” She kept her voice low, as if the sound of nature; birds and distant hooves of deer, and the motion of the fire; the burnt, black shell of a marshmallow laying there in the middle, would have distracted the others from the question. The weight of it. 

He felt their ogling eyes like something alive. Richie swallowed deeply and smiled towards her. Crooked and wrong. “How’s it at yours, Beevie?”

 _Ah_ , Richie thought as she looked at him then, like he had taken a white-hot piece of wood from the fire and put it to her throat.

_What did he just say?_

His smile evaporated. Actions set in motion and gleefully continued coming to a full stop like a kick to his guts. 

"Bev," He began, felt whichever words he had considered restrict as she shook her head. The notion choked him as if a noose held his neck. " _Fuck —_ " He fell forward, hand outstretched in a cry for forgiveness as Eddie grabbed him. 

"You need some air." He simply stated. Pulled upwards and pushed away. "Now," at the start of a disagreement, a hush. "Go away." 

"But, Eds. I'm—" 

He looked to Eddie, and back to Bev.

"No," He pushed again, gently, action _for_ him not _against_. "You do not have a choice. Take some air before you speak to her again." 

He felt his own eyes burn with shame as he saw Eddie calming himself, breathing in and out to then put his hand to his shoulder. Richie opened and closed his mouth, recoiled internally as he noticed the way they all, _his friends_ , avoided looking at him. Felt a light squeeze before he shook the well-meaning hand off — a bug, a thing unwanted and undeserved.

"Right." 

_What the actual fuck_ — _was wrong with him?!_

Richie ran away and as he did; the void left in the pit of his stomach by the loss of the fire filled with liquid and cold. Fretted back and forth together with the rhythm of his heavy steps. _Shit._

At the forefront of his mind lay Bev's betrayed expression. Shock mixed with disgust as she startled backwards as if she had been hit. It twisted his insides, like a rag being wringed out. Harshly as bile dripped of it and landed to his feet. 

He wanted to rip his own tongue out. If he just had shut up. If he had ever known _how._

_Bev's eyes._

Furthermore the looks of his friends. _How could he_? They thought as they churned and crawled in their places at the very present of him. 

Richie pressed his palms to his eyes. Not easing the pressure despite seeing stars of white and feeling them prick. 

_How could he?_

He crossed the walk path, sawdust soft beneath him as it squished in the damp air, ground switching back to dewdrop clad grass as he let his eyes free. He reached a tree and with a solid kick to its trunk did he make bark fly, swore at it as he turned around and put his back to it. 

The liquid grew hard. Because he wanted to _hurt_ Bev. Bill, Ben _and_ Stan furthermore. He had grew livid in that moment. _Euphoric_. As with his father. Richie swallowed deeply, felt his own saliva get stuck, thick, in his throat as he did not want to think of it. Swallowed again and felt sick.

He tore into his front pocket of his mint green shirt, dazzled with leafs, instead. Grabbed a hold of his cigarette package and found it empty. 

Still he saw everyone in front of him. Their eyes—

"Hey, lonesome." 

His hand flew up, grabbed hold of his shirt as his body startled closer to the rough tree at the sight of Hans. 

"Jesus, _fuck_ ," Richie bit out through clenched teeth at the whiny voice. The blue package in his other hand squeezed to a crumbled hourglass shape. "Warn a person before you sneak up on them, would ya?" He dropped his hand again, it falling limp to his side as he stared at an amused smile. 

Hans, _oh the lovely Hans_ , stood with a broom propped against his shoulder, light saw dust stuck to its brown straws. He nodded to the walk path at Richie's look, confusion he thought but rather it was contempt. 

"I'm cleaning up." He stated. 

Richie considered the utter pointlessness of brushing saw dust. "In the middle of the night?" 

He smacked his lips. A disgusting sound. "Workers never sleep," he shrugged and walked forward the two last steps between them, leaned his back to the wide tree besides Richie. "Why aren't you at the party?" 

Hans smacked and pointed to their group with the broom. 

A group, _his closest friends_ , which at the moment felt so distant and enclosed to Richie and rightfully so. A knit together dome of comfort, away from the perpetrator.

"No offence," Richie started and winced slightly. Looked to his unwelcome guest with a makeshift smile. "But I'd rather not make new acquaintances right now." 

Somewhat ashamed too as he thought about what he had suggested about the guy and Stan. 

"Auch." Hans whined and blew air through his teeth. His name, roughly embroidered to his shirt, glared back at Richie as he waved his hand. Moved it and leaned the broom against the tree instead of _leaving._

_Oh, he'd rather rip Hans' tongue out._

Richie clenched his empty pack, hard, at the thought. 

A breathe of air sounded beside him in a second's pause. A pause of thoughts thumbing together, accumulating in his chest as he shook his head and turned away. Thoughts which did not quenche at the motion but instead became accompanied with a sensation of needles. _Restlessness._

_He wanted to run._

"So. You want some? I'll offer a discount price for a friend of a friend." Hans tapped his shirt pocket twice; the sound of plastic on the other side of the pink fabric. 

Richie glanced at him, scoffed shortly as if his aching bones did not scream for it. For a release. 

"No," he fiddled with the material between his fingers. Not shocked at the development of their conversation. _He had smelled it._

"Buy only directly from the source is my motto. But thank you, my extended friend. Not enough business amongst your fellow bird devotees? I can only imagine Stanley _high as a kite_. That is a sight I would have payed to see." He laughed. A jab of pain at the mention of his friend. 

Hans tapped his pocket once more, smiled wryly before he lowered his hand. "Your loss," he said nasally. "Do not mix business and pleasure. _My motto._

"Hm." Richie said, closed his mouth with a dry tongue, and looked away. Not liking his tone nor the feelings of his own heart hammering in his chest. 

" _Hm_." Hans repeated. "You sure though?" He brought up his hand again and pulled out the small bag, a dussin of white pills seen inside of it as Richie looked back. "Two for the price of one?" He shook it. "Or, I'll even do you one better," he held up both his hands, bag pressed between his thumb and palm at display. " _For free_." 

A short laugh. Richie glanced to his friends, the fire painting them golden and dancing between them with its fiery, and back again. "Baltazar does charity now?" _Say no._ "If I were smarter, I'd say you're trying to poison me." 

"Shit, right from the source. No kidding." The hands were lowered to open the bag, two pills handed over into the cup of Richie's. "There you go. No poison, I promise. Just a good guy helping out his friend's friend in need," he hushed the other with a finger and the bag to his mouth. "I know a junky when I see one and you look like shit." 

A pat on top of the hand before he let go and put the pills back to his pocket. "Say hi to Stan from me again, would you?" He then said with a wink and walked away, taking the broom he had propped up to the tree with him, waving it in the air to bid his goodbye.

The birds twittered in the night sky. 

_Shit._

Richie had intended to refuse. _He wasn't a junky_. Although, the pills felt like a heavy security blanket in his hand, a duvet filled with chains. He chewed his cheek as his leg jumped up and down; the restlessness like a second skin. The cooler air Eddie must have hoped would have cleared his mind made it worse. Turned the liquid in his stomach to solid steel. 

The clouds in the sky far above, pulsing stars barely peeking through here and there, hid the full moon behind them like a thick, white coat. 

Richie looked to it, his head rested to the bark of the tree, and as he stretched his neck he felt his shirt move, caressing his wounds in a mocking embrace. They stung and pulsed. His head had started to hurt and he had acted out of such horrific antipathy. So, _of course_ , he put one of the pills to his pant's pocket and swallowed the other dry. _Better not be poison._ Although, not the first time he had swallowed an unknown substance. 

Feeling quite certain that gravity had led the pill down his throat, he leaned his chin down again. Saw Eddie walking towards him.

He decided against it with a gulp and swung his leg around, turned and walked away from the tree. Did not get far before Eddie caught hold of his arm. His touch felt like a burn. 

" _Throw it up_ , Richie." He demanded, his voice court and hard. Richie looked back and could see the others beyond Eddie's determined face, his steel gaze and furrowed brows, could see Bill standing up from his chair, practically already on his way to intertwine. To deescalate the situation. _Whatever_ that entailed. The worried and confused faces of Bev, Ben, Mike and Stan. Richie's earlier endeavor seemingly forgotten. 

_Still. No, thanks._

"Come here." Richie said to Eddie, twisted his arm and returned the action by grabbing hold of Eddie's instead. Led him away for a few silent moments before he spoke again and let go. 

"What?" Richie asked as they came to a stop, he tried to sound accusing. The next set of empty tent rows surrounded them and a rusty neglected grill stood to their right. The smell of old lighter fluid there too. 

"I took a fuckin' aspirin." He threw his shoulders up. A small buzz started to build in his chest. Made his hand shake slightly, although, evidently it was ignored. "Thank you for worrying, though."

Eddie laughed. It sounded small and helpless. "Jesus, don't even try to pretend I'm _that_ stupid. Are you fuckin' crazy, Richie? _Drugs?_ Throw up _whatever the fuck_ you were idiotic enough to take, please, before you get yourself killed.

"Hey, hey," Richie lifted his hands. A clog in his throat made it harder to breathe. "I'm okay, Eds," He tried to laugh, to dampened the look of concern so strongly displayed in front of him, swallowed dryly as Eddie inched forward. "Really, I'm unkillable." Nonetheless, he had rather the pill make him feel better, not _this_. Shaking hands and yet another knot in his stomach pulling tighter and tighter. 

_Fuckin' Hans._

Eddie simply repeated himself again. _Throw it up_. The phrase echoed in Richie's head, increased and decreased in volume. 

Eddie looked about ready to shove his own fingers down his throat. Perhaps considering to force him to vomit. _Perhaps he should._ Richie's body felt wrong.

"Is this _why_ you acted so fucking off?"

The buzz turned to a throb, a pressure against his brain. Something wants out, he thought with a silent laugh and he could hear Eddie's heartbeat in his thin chest, beating against the rib cage like a sledgehammer. Thought he heard _drugs,_ spitted out between clenched teeth in a whisper as if it were the secret password to something vile.

"Please, just do it for me." Eddie finally said and he wanted to listen.

But instead the moon, now perfectly high I the sky, escaped the clouds and Richie was forced to scream. The noise ripped from his lungs as someone thrusted a metal pole into his chest, jagged and rusty and _FUCK._

 _Get out._ He caught a glimpse of Eddie's outstretched arm, his fear, as he fell to his knees to the ground, gasping. 

_Get out, get out—_ Distant pinpricks of peebles cutting into his legs, the momentarily burn of a hand to his back. Another scream falling out of his gaping mouth as something tore at his insides. As he grasped at the peeples with whitening knuckles and with fear blooming in his stomach. 

**_Get_** **_out_**. The moon compelled and he obeyed. 

He could hear a body fuzz above him, shift back and forth over the ground, so uncertain, and crawled into himself with his hands digging into the ground as the pain increased. He cried as he could no longer scream. Forehead to the ground as _his bones_ cracked. Twisted and reformed into something stronger. Able to contain it all. 

The moonlight pulsed in the night sky, and his hands, his feet, his eyes, _his teeth_ , hurt. _EVERYTHING_. He felt a pressure build in his jaw and he managed to whine, despite his vocal cords having split apart, and he twisted his body back and forth. 

The pressure in his jaw grew and exploded. His old teeth fell to the ground below him in piles of red. _His teeth._ Like white stars in the black night sky. He could feel the hot, sticky blood caress his gums. Soon replaced by something else entirely. _Please, no_ . _No, no, no._

Claws pressed out from under beneath his nails, pushed them aside and into the ground as he dug them down deeper. He felt his eyeballs do the same. _Pop, pop_. They rolled away and became forgotten. It all turned black, the blood soaked grass and dirt unseeable, and then his sight returned in tenfold. He courtly shut his eyes as his head pounded and his brains scrambled in its shell as he shook, seized with a sounding crack in his ears; the twist and break of his eardrums. 

A chorus of cracks, breaking of brittle bones, filled them then. A loud whine accompanied by warm blood running and dripping down to his cheeks. By his own heartbeat which for a moment had stopped but which now were back. Screaming in his chest. He tasted metal as his mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, far too big for his anatomy, although fixed as his skin stretched and reformed. Broke at its seams and he was allowed to scream once more. Although now, guttural and animalistic; a cry into the night. Not completely human any longer. 

_Make it stop_. He managed to think. Begged for a way out. To faint. To _die_. Heard another voice beyond it all, laced with concern and the stench of fear, before it all turned white. His ribcage split and broke out of his skin like a pair of outstretched wings, born anew, covered in blood and human guts, but now it were nothing but a obscure sensation. _Ha. I am dying,_ he thought then and in some sense, he was. _Thank the merciful God._

The creature rose finally to its feet. A tenacious reforment replaced by, in comparison, a blissful hunger. A deep churning in its stomach and a howl let out into the hunt. 

He knew nothing but the horrific pain and then he knew nothing at all. A vast blackness. 

The thick taste of blood on his tongue as he awoke hours later. The numbness a clear reminiscence to the outcome of his father's fist hitting his jaw; one time, and then all over again and more.

He felt dry grass beneath his palms, spit copper to the ground, and fought for his breathe — for the fact was this; Richie was alone and no longer ravenous. 

**Author's Note:**

> so, how was it? 
> 
> thank you so, so much for actually reading the whole thing!! (or perhaps you just scrolled down to the good stuff hmm?) whichever way, I appreciate you tremendously for reading my first ever finished one-shot!! 
> 
> what did it take, like a year to write?? I envy and admire those who write like one chapter a month sigh
> 
> apologize for the lack of werewolf action, heh, this turned out to be more of a character study (ish). there may be a chance that I'll post something more, a continuation, another one-shot, though!  
> since, I do have ideas for like 2-3 chapters more :') (as my plan was for it to be chapters at first)
> 
> still, I would like to say, yay to my first ever finished work!! :) and it has a 10k word count on top of that, how. 
> 
> and thank YOU, once more, for reading!
> 
> (for anyone interested, I am actually writing on Black Smoke! just very slowly!! Sorry, since I left you on quite a cliffhanger, as usual haha)


End file.
